Lending

Credit unions have done remarkably well recently in repairing once-troubled ties with auto dealers, but work still needs to be done on speeding up approval times, a former Evansville, Ind. dealer and automotive publisher told CU executives Thursday.

CUDL (CU Direct Corporation), the nation's largest point-of-sale and indirect lending network for credit unions reported high penetration numbers for its AutoSMART program and Web site www.cudlautosmart.com. CUDL announced that AutoSMART reached a record number 453 credit unions and 3,959 auto dealer participants representing some 15 million members.

Credit Union Lending Direct Corp. announced today that it has reached an agreement with Manheim Automotive Financial Services, to handle CU due diligence services for its 12,000 independent dealers.

Citing the downturn in auto lending in a now difficult market, the outgoing chairman of Credit Union Direct Lending Corp., Henry Wirz, appealed today for greater CU collaboration through the CUDL network as a means to halt the slide.

When it comes to auto lending, credit unions need to greatly tighten up their tracking and monitoring systems on a broad front with particular focus on dealer performance, borrower scores and loan terms to both produce gains and ensure against losses.

A study from Experian, one of the three big credit reporting bureaus, has found that the credit scores of people with perfect car payment histories can be as much as 100 points higher than those who have even one late payment.